close
close

topicnews · October 25, 2024

FPL Pingreen relies on Manchester City

FPL Pingreen relies on Manchester City

Hello FPL fans! My name is Pingreen and I’m back to share my Fantasy Gameweek 9 picks here on SportsCasting. I was ranked 700th in the world in 2022/23 and was ranked 1,330th last season. So be sure to take my advice seriously.

I’m now completely over the fact that FPL Towers added a Son assistant last week, only to cruelly take it away from me on Monday. I’m ready to share with you some tips for Gameweek 9 that are so good that there’s no way FPL will take away any assists from them. Okay, maybe I’m not over it yet.

Fantasy Gameweek 9 Tips

Captain Pick – Erling Haaland – £15.4m – SOU (H)

Even that one friend who finishes last in the mini-league every season so you make him do a stupid dance on TikTok knows it would be crazy not to put the armband on Erling Haaland this week. He scores a lot of goals – 10 so far this season in just 8 appearances.

Their opponents, Southampton, concede a lot of goals – a whopping 18 this season in the same period.

I don’t need to tell you more about why you should captain the Norwegian, so here’s a completely useless fact about Haaland: At just five years old, he set the world record for the longest long jump in his age group. He recorded a distance of 1.63 meters.

Does that make him a better captain? Not really.

Defender – Josko Gvardiol – £6.1m – SOU (H)

If you’re not an xG fan and believe football is played on grass, you might be concerned by the fact that City haven’t kept a clean sheet since their opening match of Gameweek 1 against Chelsea.

However, if you’re a fan of the underlying stats, you should be a fan of Manchester City’s defense, as the Sky Blues are only behind Liverpool in xG conceded so far this season.
Joško Gvardiol contributed several goals for Pep’s side in the second half of last season and appears to have returned to his best form with two goals in his last three Premier League games. Not that you get any more points for his style, but most of his goals are incredibly nice to watch, making you occasionally wonder how the man actually played at left-back.

When facing a toothless Southampton side this weekend, you can’t do better than have the Croatian in defense.

Midfielder – Kaoru Mitoma – £6.6m – WOL (H)

There was a period in the 2022-23 season where it felt like Kaoru Mitoma was scoring in every game.

I remember it well because I believed he was exceeding his underlying stats and decided against using the Japanese midfielder at my peril.

By his own high standards, Mitoma has started the season a bit slowly with just one goal for the Seagulls. However, I believe he is underperforming this time around and will soon achieve more than the 0.57 xG + xA per 90 he averages.

And there’s no better game than this to take advantage of those opportunities. Wolves appear to be in complete disarray this season and have conceded an incredible 23 goals in just 8 games, leaving them at the bottom of the table. I could see Mitoma doing some damage to this shaky defense this weekend.

Striker – Ollie Watkins – £9.1m – BOU (H)

FPL assets don’t get much more reliable than Ollie Watkins, and he seems to be getting better with each season – he finished last season with a whopping 32 goal involvements.

The downside of this was an increased price tag of £9.0m (now £9.1m) for the Villa striker, prompting many managers to look elsewhere.

He has picked up where he left off this season, albeit with 7 goal involvements already and an average of 0.7 xG + xA per 90. If you have the budget to bring him into your team, this could be the week to do it be doing this with Villa opponents Bournemouth at home.
He is the third highest goalscorer of all time on UK betting sites this weekend, behind only Erling Haaland and Cole Palmer. Enough of the disappointing budget strikers, give me back Watkins.

You may also like...